Cameron's Visit - Pyeongtaek, Suwon and Seoul

Wow!  I don't think that anyone could have scheduled and captured all that Cameron and I did in one week in Korea.  Subways, trains, car, KTX train, buses, taxi and plane - yes, we used all of them to travel throughout Korea.

Our first stop was the Tong Buk Market in Pyeongtaek.  Had to pick up some produce and knew that Cameron would enjoy seeing a place like this.

We couldn't have picked a more perfect time and day to go.  There were hardly any people there yet and it was a chilly day so the smell of the fish was not strong at all. 

The next day we decided to check out the Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon.  I had never been there so I really didn't know what to expect.  I thought possibly you would see the main gate of the fortress and there would probably be a museum or two.  Oh No!  The fortress was still in place and it was HUGE! We initially thought it would be great to walk the entire fortress - why not, right?  As we were walking along we realized that we could not see the circumference but then we saw that looked like it was possibly part of the fortress high on top of a mountain that looked pretty far way.  I looked at Cameron and said, if that is part of the fortress, there is no way that we will be able to walk the entire fortress. She shrugged it off and said think positive Carmen, sure we will.  

STEPS STEPS STEPS!!!! Little did we know this was the first day of many days ahead of us that will require us to take sooooo many steps to our destination.

It took us a few hours but we did it!!!! I can't forget to mention that we were wearing inappropriate shoes for climbing while also caring our purses, coats, and our cameras.  Little did we know that was going to set the pace for our Korean adventure.

During out walk along the fortress, we noticed this amazing gold statue. After we finished walking the entire fortress we hopped in the car and made it our mission to find this amazing gold Buddha. Winding in and out of little side streets with cute little stores and restaurants we finally found the gold Buddha statue we saw from afar.

Next - Seoul!!!!  We caught the train and then a taxi to our first destination - Gyeongbokgung Palace. Wow, it was amazing and yet we knew that it was be so much more beautiful once all of the flowers and trees were in full bloom.

Just as we arrived to the palace, it was time for changing of the guard - perfect timing!  We found what we thought would be the best positions to capture, it was until all the pushing and shoving started.  Cameron and I both just looked at each other and without saying a word, we stood our ground and wouldn't allow people to budge us from our spots.  After the initial entrance of the guards, the crowd started to thin and we no longer had worry about people bumping us and shoving while we were trying to take photographs.

After checking out the palace, it was time to find something to eat!  We found this cute place not far from the palace.  While reading the menu we had to laugh at the edits....too funny!

We had bibimbop and dumpling soup.  It was very good!

Now with a full tummy we were ready for our trek to Insa-dong, one of the art districts of Seoul.  It is one of my favorite areas of Seoul, always cool stuff to check out.  As we were walking towards Insa-dong we passed these statues - they were both in front of one of Seoul's newspaper companies.  One is a representation of a Korean journalist and the other is of a Korean Comfort Slave during the Japanese occupation in Korea.  Till this day, Korea is still requesting that Japan formally apologize to the few remaining "comfort slaves" still alive in Korea and to also offer them some type of compensation to them for their war crimes.

We finally made to Insa-dong!!!

Our Seoul travel was not finished yet - now it was time to check out the Namsan Tower.  We took the subway to towards Myong-dong and from there we hiked our way up to the cable car to take us to the tower.  By the time that we reached the cable car, it was sprinkling on and off and the fog was rolling in.  It didn't stop us - onward and upward we went!

The fog was becoming so thick that we couldn't even see the city lights below so we both decided that it really would be a waste of money to travel to the top of the tower - we wouldn't be able to see anything.  We traveled back down to Myong-dong and tried to find something to eat.  While searching Cameron happened to look towards the tower and could see it perfectly fine - the skies were CLEAR!  Oh good grief!  Oh well, it was cool to see the tower.  I will definitely make my way there again and take pictures of Seoul's skyline for Cameron.

It was a long day and it was finally time to catch the train and head back to Pyeongtaek.